Monday, March 19 2007: India’s national broadcaster, Doordarshan, is to launch two news channels on the Sky satellite platform next month.

Doordarshan-India will be an entertainment channel, showcasing dramas, game shows, Bollywood movies, chat shows, sport and health programming. Doordarshan-News will broadcast 24-hour live news with an Indian and Asian focus.

19 March 200: NEW DELHI: Though one mobile TV enabled digital terrestrial transmitter has been running for some days now, Prasar Bharati’s digitalisation programme has been pushed back because the Planning Commission has so far not cleared funding for the ambitious programme.

Senior officials are tight-lipped about the mobile TV programme, telling indiantelevision.com that the content is ready, but they could not comment on the programme unless the money was released, which they had expected to be done last week.

Thursday, December 21, 2006: Just days short of the mandatory implementation of the conditional access system (CAS) in the four metros on January 1, 2007, the Subhash Chandra-floated direct-to-home (DTH) service provider, Dish TV, plans to slash prices 49%, from Rs 2,950 to Rs 1,500 (including Rs 200 installation charge). The announcement will be made shortly.

India’s only other nationwide DTH player Tata Sky—the 74:26 JV between the Tatas and the Star group—may be forced to follow suit since it sells a DTH connection at Rs 3,999. Doordarshan’s DD Direct airs free-to-air channels at Rs 77-plus taxes a month

MANGALORE: Speakers at "Chandana Utsav" organised by Doordarshan Kendra, Bangalore, here on Sunday stressed the need for protecting Indian culture from external influences. They appreciated the role played by India's leading public service broadcaster in upholding local culture and providing wholesome entertainment.

Delivering the presidential remarks, D. Veerendra Heggade, Dharmadhikari, Sri Kshetra Dharmasthala, said Dakshina Kannada had assimilated various cultures. People of the district were industrious and worked towards upholding their culture, he said.

Lauding the role played by Doordarshan and Bangalore Kendra in promoting local culture, Dr. Heggade said the Government must support Doordarshan as it was playing a vital role in disseminating information. Vidyaprasanna Tirtha, seer of Sri Subramanya Math, said the youth of the country were falling prey to external influences. He said the media should reach out to all sections of society and lauded Doordarshan for holding its own despite competition from private channels. Aloysius Paul D'Souza, Mangalore Bishop, said while Indians were distancing themselves from their own culture, foreigners were coming here to learn about our culture.

H.S. Ballal, Vice-Chancellor of Manipal Academy of Higher Education, and B. Sambamurthy, Chairman and Managing Director of Corporation Bank, spoke. Dr. Heggade felicitated K.S. Suresh Babu, former Additional Director-General of Police (Western Range), and his wife Shyamala. A multi-lingual show telecast live on Chandana and Karnataka regional service (DD-One) in Tulu, Konkani and Kannada, was presented.

NEW DELHI: Private broadcasters and big MSOs in the country might soon be called to lend a helping hand in the financial restructuring of pubcaster Prasar Bharati.

According to one of the options relating to funding of Prasar Bharati, suggested by a government panel, a corpus can be created from contributions from the broadcast and cable industry on the lines of the universal service obligation (USO) fund in the telecom sector.

Five per cent of a private telecom operator's annual revenues go towards the USO fund, which is used to finance new rural telephony projects identified by the government.

The panel on Prasar Bharati’s financial restructuring has suggested that private broadcasters and MSOs can be asked to contribute between 5-10 per cent of their annual revenues for a USO fund-type corpus, which can be used to support the over 45,000 workforce of the pubcaster.

Prasar Bharati, which manages Doordarshan and All India Radio, is in the middle of a debate over ways to augment its earnings.

This recommendation, along with others in a nearly 300-page report, is being presently studied by a group of ministers (GoM) before the issue is taken to the Union Cabinet for a formal okay.

The GoM met briefly last week, information and broadcasting minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi told Indiantelevision.com. He did not give any time frame on taking the Prasar Bharati matter to the Cabinet.

However, industry players observe whether there would be increased accountability of Prasar Bharati if a USO fund is created via private sector players’ contribution to partly fund pubcaster’s activities. More importantly, whether the funds would be properly used.

According to Hindu Business Line, of the Rs 107.53 billion collected by the government from telecom companies in the form of USO fund since its inception in 2002-03, a staggering Rs. 70 billion is yet to be disbursed.

The newspaper quoted the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India as saying that undisbursed amount is estimated to cross Rs 250 billion by 2010 against a total collection of Rs. 375 billion, which means only 48 per cent of the fund is expected to be utilised for extending telephone services in the rural areas. The numbers assume significance even as the digital divide between rural and urban is ever increasing.

Meanwhile, letting the pubcaster tap the capital markets and levying a cess on sale of every TV and radio set in the country are amongst some of the other options suggested by the committee on financial rejig of Prasar Bharati.

Though Prasar Bharati closed FY 2006 with record-breaking revenues of over Rs 12 billion, its expenses are so huge that the government is finding it difficult to bridge the chasm between income and expenditure.

NEW DELHI: The government seems to be dumping several recommendations formulated by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai).

These recommendations were made by Trai when it was being headed by Pradip Baijal, who retired this month. Baijal and Union minister for telecommunications, Dayanidhi Maran were often at loggerheads over many issues.

The latest casualty in the list is the Trai recommendation of October 2004 on conditional access system (CAS). It is learnt that the information and broadcasting (I&B) ministry has sought fresh recommendations on CAS from Trai, and the same are expected within the next 10 days.

Trai, which regulates the telecom sector and the carriage aspects of the broadcasting industry, is now being headed by Nripendra Misra after Baijal’s term ended in March.

Besides the Trai recommendation on CAS, many others are also being reviewed and reworked. For instance, the communications ministry recently asked the regulator to issue fresh recommendations on spectrum for third generation (3G) telecom services. This is despite Trai having issued spectrum recommendations in May 2005.

Other Trai recommendations, which are not being actively considered, include those on mobile number portability (issued on March 8, 2006); issues relating to private terrestrial TV broadcasting (August 29, 2005); publication of mobile phone directory (May 5, 2005); and on office of ombudsman (August 10, 2004).

As for CAS, the government has been told by the Delhi High Court to submit a timeframe, by July 5, for rollout of the addressability system across four metros.

Although the NDA government had mandated CAS in the metros three years ago, the order was denotified in Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata due to political resistance. Chennai is the only place which has CAS now. CAS is about enabling TV viewers to watch pay channels of their choice through a set-top box.

Among the issues that Trai is likely to revisit while framing fresh recommendations on CAS are pricing of channels; norms for bouquets or clutch of channels versus ala-carte channels; modality for CAS rollout; standardisation of set-top boxes; and renting of set-top boxes.

According to an official in the I&B ministry, "the government has written to Trai asking it to revisit some of its recommendations on CAS".

He reasoned, "we want to introduce CAS and not chaos, as was the case last time". The I&B ministry had several rounds of consultation with industry stakeholders on CAS recently, after which it sought fresh recommendations from Trai, the official pointed out.

While Trai had suggested three options for rolling out CAS, the new recommendation is likely to focus on `mandatory’ CAS in the metros.

Also, even as Trai had earlier prescribed norms for channel bouquets, the new set of recommendation may look at modalities of offering individual pay channels (rather than bouquets) to TV viewers under CAS.

In addition, Trai has been advised to offer specific and pointed recommendations on issues such as fixing of MRP of channels; set-top box rental; and revenue-sharing between cable operators and broadcasters. In the earlier recommendation of 2004, Trai left many issues hanging and ambiguous, it is felt.

NEW DELHI: In case, you are investing in a TV set or a set top box, think twice. Experts in the government have drawn out a detailed plan to phase out all analogue transmission and turn India completely digital in the coming five year plan (’07-12). The deadline for a ‘Digital Delhi’ has been set as ’10. As per the proposed plan, India will go completely digital by ’15.In this project, Prasar Bharati will take the leap ahead by ensuring digital terrestrial broadcast for all cities by ’13.

This will extend to both All India Radio (AIR) and Doordarshan (DD), according to IT experts in the Planning Commission. As far as conversion of cable and satellite (C&S) homes from analogue to digital is concerned, the first step would involve providing conditional access to C&S homes and then converting them to digital technology by ’15.This time around, the government plans to take no chance with set top boxes, which will not be imported as per the current recommendations. Experts have drawn a detailed plan for indigenous production of digital set top boxes (STBs) in order to avoid any controversy over the issue. The indigenously made STBs should have digital analogue conversion capability for delivery of digital signal to the subscriber, alongwith conditional access and addressability features.

The experts have also recommended that national standards for the manufacture of digital signal receivers must be established before indigenous production commences. In order to make digital conversion a complete success — testing, publication and adoption of technical standards for terrestrial digital transmission must be done by the government. This must also include adoption and publication of digital standards for cable television.The plan, which is to be implemented in a phased manner during the eleventh five year plan, also recommends the creation of a body that will have a single regulator for both content and carriage. The proposed regulator will ensure convergence of all network platforms — broadcast, satellite and telecom. It will also look into convergence of voice, video and data.

While the US has set a target to completely phase out analogue technology by ’10, China is also working on the same lines to go digital between ‘12-15.